Reality TV

So here’s an interesting thought I had today.. Is the proliferation of reality TV shows, especially the competitive shows, actually making us a more critical culture? By placing celebrities (of varying status) in a role of providing critique in these shows based on their experience, is the critique they offer actually influencing society’s need to offer critique? Due to the popularity of these shows in the general public, as well as much of the public acknowledging the celebrity status of the critics they must have some influence on the people watching these shows. How much of that influence as well as the quick-fix ability to critique anything and everything on the internet is bleeding over into our physical reality?

For that matter, is the TV example really making people better critics or just making them think they should try to critique more stuff? I tend to think the latter, but in some sense the demand for more and better design in products and services would suggest that people are looking at their purchases with a more critical eye (maybe because there are simply more choices available, and in part because of the influences of major players like Apple).

Tying this loosely back to our role as designers, I wonder if this might make our lives easier coming from a critical culture as we try to offer critical analysis in our work. I realize this TV connection might be a a stretch, but it’s something interesting I’ve never considered before. Thoughts?

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5 comments

I definitely think it’s plausible the competitive / judgement shows may be influencing viewers to be more critical. I don’t know if there’s any evidence to support that or if the influence goes beyond the theme of the show. For instance, people may be more critical of singers and dancers, but are they more critical of architecture too? I believe people already have gut reactions to the things they see. They may not be able to clearly articulate what they do or don’t like, however. These shows may be providing a vocabulary for critique in music/dance that allow people to express their feelings.

What would it take for someone to be more willing to give a critique? Perhaps some confidence that they know what they are talking about (some form of expertise in the domain) plus a thought they want to express. Perhaps the shows do give people confidence that they know what they are talking about, and perhaps that confidence spills over into other domains. I don’t think so. The concept of “state dependent memory” (what you learn is more easily recalled when you are in the same state of mind, same location, etc… that you learned it in) leads me to think that the knowledge and confidence that comes with a critiquing attitude won’t bleed into other domains.

On the other hand, people may become more confident in their ability to critique, as opposed to their confidence in a particular subject matter, and that may lead to people offering more critiques in general. In that case, I can see how our lives might be easier if we watch these shows.

Environmentally, critique is becoming more natural, and so it seems that the idea that even the best concept is not above critique. However, from my limited experience of reality television shows, it always seemed that the critique was from a source of authority downward, with very minimal cross-critique among contestants. As a side-effect of this, much of the critique was directed, but only grounded in the authority of the person delivering it.

So, I don’t know what quantity of effect reality television has had on people’s acceptance of critique, but my concern would be that it would lead to ungrounded, authoritative critique rather than the rich kind of analysis that actually helps to develop ideas. Then again, I am a total curmudgeon.

But, one of the things that we do to become better at critique is engage in more of it. Jeff (Bardzell), especially right now is pointing out that we should nearly always trust our gut theories on things, so I’d like to think that the process of engaging in critique and providing insight is helpful in shaping one to become better at it, right along with Jeremy.

In the exemplar here, American Idol– do you think the producers having to change the cast of judges creates a situation that raises the original judges to the highest expert opinion? In other words, are the new judges less qualified? I think as a culture, we’ve put less faith in the new cast as AI becomes old news and we become obsessed elsewhere. But… There’s nothing telling me that the original cast was actually more qualified.

I know I’m very late to the party, but I’m just getting around to reading this. I think what you suggested about shows like American Idol affecting the way people perceive critique is an interesting thought. My immediate reaction was disagreement, but then something Jeremy said changed my mind (right before he disagreed that is). I think what he said about confidence has a lot to do with it.

I think that person X, upon hearing a judge say something about a contestant that is similar to what person X might have said about that contestant, begins to develop their confidence in their opinions. The downside to this, of course, is that most of the critique you hear on those kinds of shows isn’t “real” critique. A lot of it seems to be pandering to the audience (except for Simon on American Idol and a few of the judges on So You Think You Can Dance). If they were giving solid critiques to the performers, I think it really could have a significant impact on the audience in a positive way.